Intimní osvyetlení

Distinguished Prague cellist Peter is engaged by his old music school friend, Bambas, to play a concert in his hometown. Peter arrives with his sexy cosmopolitain girlfriend drawing the line for comaprison, contrast and low key comic results with the locals.

Intimate Lighting is a touching story with little happening besides minor frustrations, petty annyances and subtle insights. Nothing monumental over the course of the film arises yet you are lured by the charming sincerity of the players and the wan humor lapsing into absurdity along the way. Most of the actors are one and done which hints at the fact they were musicians first, yet they all give highly plausible performances conveying love, loss, viewpoint on life and disappointment.

Director Ivan Passer does a fine job of molding and pacing the rather banal storyline and pumping life into it with some nuanced characerization and comic deadpan similar to the work of future Jim Jarmucsh minus the hipsterism. Intimate Lighting is touching slic of life.